“The watchman told you of the two young men who brought her out and laid her in the dead-cart—I was one of the two.”
“And who was the other?”
“A friend of mine—one Malcolm Ormiston.”
“Ah! I know him! Pardon my abruptness, Sir Norman,” said the stranger, once more speaking in his assumed suave tone, “but I feel deeply on this subject, and was excited at the moment. You spoke of her being brought to the house of a friend—now, who may that friend be, for I was not aware that she had any?”
“So I judged,” said Sir Norman, rather bitterly, “or she would not have been left to die alone of the plague. She was brought to my house, sir, and I am the friend who would have stood by her to the last!”
Sir Norman sat up very straight and haughty on his horse; and had it been daylight, he would have seen a slight derisive smile pass over the lips of his companion.
“I have always heard that Sir Norman Kingsley was a chivalrous knight,” he said; “but I scarcely dreamed his gallantry would have carried him so far as to brave death by the pestilence for the sake of an unknown lady—however beautiful. I wonder you did not carry her to the pest-house.”
“No doubt! Those who could desert her at such a time would probably be capable of that or any other baseness!”
“My good friend,” said the stranger, calmly, “your insinuation is not over-courteous, but I can forgive it, more for the sake of what you've done for her to-night than for myself.”
Sir Norman's lip curled.